Design and interprofessional collaboration

Design is a reflective practice (see Schön, 1983) with practical aims, where existing knowledge is iteratively reflected in emerging new problem contexts.

Collaborative, transdisciplinary design dialogues (see Wahl & Baxter, 2008) are based on continuous mediation and learning. The emerging knowledge can be used to improve the collaborative culture; to develop better methods, tools, and instruments for interprofessional design education; and to improve practitioners’

ability to self-enable and facilitate such co-creation processes. In this process, designers can act as the brokers in interprofessional and transdisciplinary meaning-making.

In an overarching setting of sustainability, the meanings of things are

collaboratively mediated. In interprofessional and transdisciplinary design (as discussed in section 1.2.2), this denotes reflection on what is the problem to tackle and the materials to start with, how the process is conducted and

managed, and why this action needs to be taken (reframing the problem-setting itself). The inquiry in such a transdisciplinary process, as suggested by Hirsch Hadorn et al. (2008, 2010; see Figure 8), consists of three, interconnected phases focusing on 1) problem analysis (“what” and “why”); 2) problem identification and structuring (“what” and “how”); and 3) bringing results to fruition (“how” and

“why”) (Hirsch Hadorn et al., 2008, 2010). These phases also connect with the three necessary knowledge components in transdisciplinarity, as described by Pohl and Hirsch Hadorn, (2007; see section 2.1.3), linking to systems knowledge, transformation knowledge, and target knowledge.

Figure 8. The three phases of inquiry in a transdisciplinary research process.

Source: Hirsch Hadorn et al. (2010)

As delineated in our earlier publication (Marttila & Kohtala, 2014) and in connection to design as a method for general problem-solving, contribution to the three phases entails specific design-relevant knowledge and knowledge components.

Framing problems with conceptual design mediation

The notion of frames and framing as a theoretical or methodological tool is applied in several different fields: the generalities of its use are clear. Frames and framing are where people introduce their “structures of belief, perception, and appreciation” (Schön & Rein, 1994, p. 23; as cited in Ylirisku, 2013, p. 49) into collaborative meaning-making. Frames have a familiarity with symbolic concepts (Ylirisku, 2013) and they connect to disciplinary meaning-making. Unlike abstract concepts, however, frames⁵⁰ are “woven into the materiality of a situation”

(Ylirisku, 2013, p. 67) and have an effect on how a given problem is perceived.

In his research, Ylirisku (2013) defines generic framing strategies in conceptual design covering, for example, the use of “re-articulation” (and visual articulation), the “search for difference,” the “enabling of participatory contribution,” and the use of an “a priori scheme” (p. 223) to give initial structure for articulation (pre-framing). Besides studio practice, creative collaboration and its facilitation remain key ingredients in contemporary design action. Whereas the studio practice in design already emphasizes an iterative approach (see Schön, 1983), artifactual explorations, and the utilization of tacit knowledge (see Polanyi, 1966), the collaborative approach is furthering the expansion of inquiry.

Schön (1983, p. 40; as cited in Ylirisku, 2013, p. 45) describes how problem-setting is a process “in which, interactively, we name the things [as abstract concepts] to which we will attend and frame the context in which we will attend them.” Traditionally, the philosophy of learning has regarded learning activity as the “acquisition of concepts” (Stables, 2013, p. 37). According to Stables (2013), concepts are “types of signs” (p. 37) but within a specific “semiotic system”

(p. 44). This semiotic system promotes the sign to take precedence over the actual “concept” (that could be otherwise understood as neutral) both

“epistemologically and ontologically” (Stables, 2013, p. 44). In design

collaboration, however, working with concepts has a somewhat larger meaning than in other sciences. To a designer, any concept (a design concept even more so) is, from an epistemological viewpoint, a mere suggestion for solution by its nature, to be tested in reality and practice for any further validation.

Conceptual designing and the learning within it can be also assessed as project-specific learning (Ylirisku, 2013). A project as a concept can be defined as being

“timely-bounded intentional resourceful work to attain a goal” varying from “sub-second tasks to multi-year efforts” (Ylirisku, 2013, p. 82). Furthermore, projects can be considered to consist of sub-projects and of a hierarchical order that relates to goals, division of labor and expertise, and chosen focus (or foci).

50 For Bateson (1972), frames are connected to how contexts are interpreted as messages of mean-ing.

According to Ylirisku (2013, p. 216), the design concepts created in projects are

“grounded in preliminary work” and thus the understanding of this phase of work becomes crucial. Ylirisku (2013, p. 216) calls this preliminary phase “priming,”

defined as “the construction of things-to-deal-with in the project.” In the cases he studied, the designers seemed to be employing this priming “strategically” as a

“situated exploration of the things-to-deal-with” (Ylirisku, 2013, p. 216). Ylirisku (2013, p. 216) notes how the “collaborative construction” of the semiotic resources is a “crucial phenomenon” at the beginning of the activity. Hence, priming can be understood as a beginning for a pre-framing process in which the common structures of interpretation and interaction are negotiated.

Creating the foundations for interprofessional and transdisciplinary design collaboration calls for collaborative setting of the problem space. Not only design activity, but the priming and pre-framing, too, must be collaborative. In the Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity (Frodeman et al., 2010), Mansilla (2010, p. 289) proposes a “pragmatic constructionist view” (see pragmatism in section 2.1.1) as an “epistemological foundation” for interdisciplinary learning. Such an epistemological framework has to be “pluralist in its capacity to account for multiple forms of disciplinary understanding,” “relevant” in its attempt to integrate perspectives, and must “explain how knowledge advances,” including

“some form of knowledge quality assurance” (Mansilla, 2010, p. 294). Hence, the integration of various types of knowledge must be addressed at the beginning, along with the potential resulting changes in the processes and outcomes of work.

To facilitate transdisciplinary meaning-making, we need a “transdisciplinary language” of “concepts and models” (François, 2006, p. 618). Consequently, for a designer as the facilitator of collaborative, interprofessional, and transdisciplinary interaction, this approach entails specific competence. This involves 1) contextual, conceptual, and system mapping (analytical skills); 2) facilitation skills such as in co-design practice⁵¹ (e.g., probing, scenario building, collaborative mapping, etc.);

and 3) skills for integrating and synthesizing the outputs into hybrid forms (see Hukkinen, 2008), embodying them into supportive objects and activities.

Approaching problems of sustainability with design

Sustainable design is possible only if the unsustainability in real life is first understood appropriately and the problem context is further defined (Clune, 2009). Acquiring robust systems knowledge, however, is challenging, requiring strategies to deal with uncertainties regarding the problem and its development, as well as the perceptions of goals and options for change (Marttila & Kohtala, 2014). Design is “an exploration of how things come into being and act” (Fry, 2008, p. 12): such understanding is a crucial part of the professional design intelligence (Fry, 2008). And yet, according to Fry, this design intelligence must be distinct from the mere “process, product and expression of a professional

practice” of design (Fry, 2008, p. 14), also addressing the important values and visions in the collaborative meaning-making process.

51 For further details, see, for example, Sanders and Stappers (2014).

To change the unsustainable course of our modern (often industrialized and thus commercialized) design practice, the focus of our action must be the ontological foundations of design activity, and refining (and redirecting) its processes to support more deliberative participation and planning. The ontological character of design means in a sense the design of design (Fry, 2008, p. 34). What this

ontological character of design brings into the discussion is not the same thing as

“crude deterministic materialism, environmental conditioning or the determinism of 'economic rationalism'“ (Fry, 2008, pp. 34–35), but instead something related to the way — and to what kind of — knowledge is developed in and through the process.

As a result, to change the course of design practice and in becoming a redirective practitioner (see Fry, 2008), it is required to involve oneself in critical thinking and in the acquisition of new knowledge. Without the consideration of the ontological roots of the design practice, its bringing into “a regime of responsibility” is impossible (Fry, 2008, p. 55). In the process, the “professional and political alignments” (Fry, 2008, p. 55) also have to be opened up, assessed, and iterated.

Consequently, in this approach the design action can also be understood as politics (Fry, 2010).